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40M Vista Licenses in 100 Days

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the allright-who-did-it dept.

Gary writes "In the first 100 days since its launch in Jan 30 Windows Vista has sold an astounding 40 million licenses. Bill Gates gives the credit to accelerating consumer shift to digital lifestyles which has made it the fastest selling operating system in history. Surprisingly the more expensive premium editions accounted for 78 percent of Vista sales. With around 400,000 licenses a day new Vista users will take 8 weeks to beat Mac users, 4 days to exceed Mac sales and 3 days to exceed Linux desktop users."

5 of 579 comments (clear)

  1. Article by loconet · · Score: 4, Informative

    Since the original link seems to have been /.'ed, here is the Reuters story on it.

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    [alk]
  2. 400,000/day? Not really by Red+Flayer · · Score: 4, Informative

    With around 400,000 licenses a day new Vista users will take 8 weeks to beat Mac users, 4 days to exceed Mac sales and 3 days to exceed Linux desktop users."
    Sorry, sales/day is not a constant. MS sold 20 million Vista licenses in the first 30 days (according to MS). 70 days to sell another 20 million...

    Two data points are not enough to extrapolate a curve, but I'd guess that sales as a function of time is a logarithmic curve (based on early adopters) plus a near-constant (based on replacement cycles).
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    "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
  3. Re:Where did they get these numbers? by Red+Flayer · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm betting they included "free upgrade to vista" offers for copies of XP sold for the year prior to vista.
    Nope. They cannot state those as current-period sales, and for Gates to publically announce that they were would be grounds for FTC action. I'm sure he cleared the statement through Legal, so I'd be willing to bet those aren't included.

    If he had said that 40 million licenses were issued, that would be a different story... but he said sold.
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    "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
  4. A Clarification by Red+Flayer · · Score: 4, Informative

    Hey,
    The "free" upgrades cannot be stated as sales. The discount coupons sold can be stated as sales this year -- and they were. Total deferred licensing (Vista + Office 2007) was around 1.64 Bn for Qtr 1 2007.

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    "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
  5. Re:Still doesn't say by AndyCR · · Score: 5, Informative

    The lowest edition I could get with my new laptop was Home Premium.

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    If there's anyone I hate more than stupid people, it's intellectuals.